


There's No Place Like Home

by supplimint



Category: Black Survival (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Research Journal Background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-19 03:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20203318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supplimint/pseuds/supplimint
Summary: A brief look into the childhoods of the first test subjects of Lumia Island.





	There's No Place Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> **Important notes**  
Jackie's part (the first part) has animal death, gore, and referenced self-harm.  
Hyunwoo's part (the fourth part) has brief references of child abuse.  
All parts are about childhood traumas.
> 
> Ji = an honorific used for respected religious men/teachers in India
> 
> Ahaha, this piece has been sitting in my WIP folder for 8 months... and I've completely re-written it from scratch at least 4 times. The original concept was going to be about my personal headcanon that Hyunwoo had an old Walkman that used to be his mom's, and now... this is the end product! lol

Angela Winslair, precocious and seven, knows that there’s no way she can borrow a knife from the kitchens as return it before her lessons this afternoon. So she snatches a stick off the ground, gripping it in her soft, tiny hands, testing its feel. Then she grinds its tip against stone to sharpen it, before plunging it into the remains of the dove she dissected. She giggles softly when she feels the stick puncture what might be a lung, and gives the whole mess a good swirl to see the visual explosion of gore and blood before her. She stabs some more organs, and- _ ooh, an eyeball! _ It’s less round than she thought it would be - more ovally instead of marble-y, but she still has fun cleaving it in two.

After a few moments, when she gets bored, she sticks her hands into it, taking hold of mysterious lumps of flesh and _ squeezing _ till it either bursts or she gets bored and starts shredding it. She has a bit of a harder time shredding with all the tendons and bone sockets, but it’s okay, she can just cut those with her stick! When she comes across the other eyeball, she giggles and fishes it out, holding it out in front of her eyes to pretend that she’s seeing through the bird’s eye, and that she’s a bird swooping from above. Her stick is her beak that she uses to peck at the mess.

“Dumb bird,” she says. Angela imagines herself as a big bird, strong and fierce, able to tear anything that gets in her way to shreds. “You’re dead, ‘cos _ I _ killed you, so now you’re all alone in the dark. Dead.” And _ she’s _ not! Angela has plenty of toys to play with and plenty of things to toy with, out in the open light.

She keeps at the bird’s innards until everything’s become one smooth mush, and she pokes at the shredded intestines, thinking _ it really is as long as the books say it is. _ Angela hums a little tune _ (do you ears hang low, do they wobble to and ‘fro?) _ and starts to bury her toy when a maid gasps behind her.

Angela flinches and turns around to lie, get her to stay till Angela can think of something to convince her not to tell, but it’s too late. The maid’s running off again to tattle, that stupid cow! (Those are the meanest words she knows, from when she eavesdropped on Mother after she fired Angela’s third personal maid for falling for her lies.)

“Wait!” Angela cries, chasing her. “Wait!” _ That stupid cow. Stupid cow. _

Mere minutes later, she’s being dragged to the mansion’s basement.

“I don’t want to go! You can’t make me go!” She howls. The stupid cow’s hand on her arm tightens and Angela scratches it with nails she’s clipped into sharp, jagged points. Without even trying to, Angela starts think what she could do to the maid, which parts she could poke at or slice to get to her insides and make them _ writhe _like how Angela made the bird’s.

“Devil child-!” Snarls the cow through gritted teeth, and it plows ahead despite its bleeding arm through the corridors, disregarding Angela’s caterwauling and scratches. Despite the noise she’s causing, her head spins with all the ideas. She could start skinning the maid’s arm from the scratches and lay out all the layers of skin prettily, like how the anatomy books do it. She’d make the maid sit there and tell her - _ this is your epidermis, this is your dermis, this is your subcutaneous fat _ \- before moving onto bathing her exposed nerves in her own blood.

No matter what she does, nothing ever works, and she’s always trapped in the huge darkness of the basement, where she has nothing to do but be alone with all the sharp thoughts her vicious little mind makes.

_ (She could dig her eye out and see what it looks like with her remaining eye, she could bite her fingers off section-by-section, and gnaw off her hand by the wrist by the time the door opened again, she could slam her head against the wall over and over again until there was only blood bloodbloodblood-) _

The cow eventually herds Angela onto the basement stairs, leaving no room for her to squirm out through the doorway. No matter how hard she pushes it, it won’t budge, and Angela can’t kick because the last time she did, she was locked in the basement for twice as long. _ Stupid cow! If only she was big enough to shove and teach it not to tattle. _

She snatches her hand back from the doorframe as the door threatens to close on her knuckles, and the cow shuts the door to plunge her into darkness. Her thoughts sound so much louder in the darkness, purring at her to _ spill some bloodbloodblood _ . She lets out a cry of terror, and throws herself against the door, howling and kicking. She hears the _ stupid cow, that stupid, dumb cow _curse and hold it shut, insert the key into the lock, and-

_ Click! _

The sound of a heel on her room’s tiled floor cuts through the room. Fiora stomps again.

_ Click! _

“Stop that,” her father says. She scowls.

“I hate dresses, and I hate heels.” They’ve been at this for an hour. No matter how many times she says _ no, _ her father hears _ maybe _ and now both their tempers have been fraying for at least half of the hour. She hates this pink dress and its frills. These heels are dumb and she can’t even speed-walk in them. They make her look clumsy and weak and _ docile _ . Even _ sound _ docile, because of the stupid heels. Of course father wants her to wear this.

He gestures from her chair, one arm lounging on the desk like he’s an adult humoring a petulant child that’ll eventually stop stomping her feet and do what he says. “Do a twirl, let’s have a proper look at you.”

“No. I want to wear pants for the awards ceremony.”

“Get that look off your face. Twirl.”

Fiora scowls harder.

“No.”

Her father’s face is now twisted too. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?” he snaps. “I let you quit your etiquette lessons, you never spend time with your mother-”

“All those times she only wants me to cook and look pretty _ you’re the same too _-”

“I let you have fencing, and you can’t do this _ one _thing-”

“You didn’t _ let _ me, I _ fought _-”

Father slams his hand onto her desk, and it sounds like a cannon blast.

** _“Don’t you interrupt your father!”_ **

The very air seems to shudder at his roar, like a window pane about to shatter. She flinches and cringes away from him, and he seizes her silence to continue.

“Other little girls would _ love _ to wear dresses, you’re the only one to make such a fuss over it! I let you have fencing, I let you go to the meetings, I let you _ attend competitions, _ and this is what you do.”

“I won the competition, I want to wear what I want.” Her voice shakes near the end. She’s so sick of this - everything.

Father takes a deep breath, and Fiora feels sheer fury when he looks tired. He doesn’t _ get _ to look tired when he’s the one who started this all. She wants to shake him, like how he sometimes looks like he’s really about to lunge at her to shake her when she keeps saying _ no _ , even when _ he’s _the one throwing a fit, before Mom steps in between them and begs him to stop and later forces more etiquette books about being a lady down Fiora’s throat. She wants to toss him about like a ragdoll until he’s dizzy and as powerless as he makes her feel. If only she was powerful.

“Don’t you want to look like a pretty young lady?” He tries to cajole.

She wants to yell. She wants to ball her hands into fists, but he’d take that as another point of disrespect and yell at her for that, too. She’s so, so sick of prettiness and looking dainty and weak. She wants clothes she can run and jump in instead of staying quietly put, all dolled up, listening to orders and pouring afternoon tea. “I want to wear pants.”

He sighs. “Twirl, let me see how this dress looks on you.”

“No.”

Father yells at her again, again, again, again. She’s in tears from fright and anger by the time he shoves her desk over and makes all her things on it crash at her feet. She _ hates _ crying because it only eggs him on; sometimes she wants to rip her face off so he won’t use her own face against her anymore. If only she was faceless, invisible, or so grotesque that nothing could ever make her _ pretty _, so no one would ever try to force her to.

In between choked-off sobs she can hear her father continuing to yell at her, and she’s so sick and tired of this all. Fiora takes off the left shoe (not ‘her’ left shoe, just ‘the’), and the dread of what she’s doing almost makes her throw up. But she grips the heel with one hand and the sole with the other, and bends as hard as she can.

Her father is now screaming at her, moving to get off her chair and saying _ those heels are worth more than your sword, don’t you _ ** _dare-!_ **

It won’t break. She sobs as he lunges at her, _ this stupid shoe, this piece of trash, this-! _

She hurls it to the ground before he can snatch it out of her hands, and it only makes a pathetic, little -

_ Click. _

The prayer beads knock against each other as Zahir runs his fingers over them, studying their carved patterns. How wonderful, he thinks. There’s a simple elegance to them, the perfect half-circles and loops etched into the wooden diamonds. A kind old lady gave them to him one day, saying he reminded her of her grandson who’s now married and moved away. She’s passed away since then, and Zahir prayed for her when it happened, clutching the _ mala _ she’d gifted him.

And now, he in an alcove in Diwan hall, hidden from view. He’s not explicitly _ forbidden _ from the prayer hall, but he doesn’t want to get kicked out by the more contemptuous monks. If he’s kicked out, he can only pass time in his room, which he shares with twenty other children. The other children don’t like him. They think he’s weird and weak, and lazy, since he’s too young and weak to help with the chores. It’s not his fault that he almost died of hunger before he got to the temple, he thinks, and it’s not his fault that he’s six. Zahir frowns. Some of the boys _ really _ don’t like him, and they’re all friends with each other, so all that dislike together makes them dislike him even more.

Besides, he likes how the hall is quiet, and how if he’s lucky, an extra-devoted worshipper or two will enter and recite some prayers or hymns. Zahir prefers the prayers. He likes their continuous soothing cadance, and its syllables sound like a stream. He could listen to it forever.

Zahir hears several footsteps entering the hall and he tucks himself further into his hiding spot, prayer beads clutched in his bony hands. The footsteps keep walking around. It doesn’t seem like whoever’s here is here to pray… He yelps when a face pops directly into view right in front of him. _ Oh no. _ It’s Singh Ji, and he’s one of the monks who _ really _ don’t like children.

“What are you doing here?” Singh Ji asks, scowling. “You’re always here, skipping out on chores and having the rest of the children pick up your slack.”

Zahir’s mind stalls from fright as he manages to choke out, “Singh Ji sir, the doctor said-”

“It doesn’t matter what the doctor said! She said you were too weak to walk, yet you have plenty of strength to walk here, I see.”

“Sir, she said I couldn’t walk for too long sir, and that I’m too young- Singh Ji,” pleads Zahir. If Singh Ji sends him out to do chores with the rest of the orphans, he'll be done for. Making his way to Diwan hall had made him break out in cold sweat. “Doctor Patel said I’d need another month to recover fully, and even after I shouldn’t risk the chores for another two months more. Sir,” he adds. 

Singh Ji doesn’t seem to be listening. Instead, he spots Zahir’s hands clutching something, and a gleam of suspicion enters his eyes.

“What is that you’re holding?”

Zahir’s hands reflexively clench his beads tighter. “They’re my prayer beads, Singh Ji sir.”

“Oh? Let’s see it. I don’t recall any children being given any _ mala _.” Singh Ji holds his hand out for the beads.

"Sir, with all due respect sir, I'm not a thief," Zahir protests. Singh Ji raises a brow in response.

"The only reason one says 'with all due respect' is if what they say is disrespecting their seniors. I should _ hope, _ " his voice darkens, "that you are not disrespecting _ me. _ Let this monk see these prayer beads of yours. _ " _

"No sir, yes sir" says Zahir. He's not a thief, but Singh Ji won't believe the truth, but Zahir refuses to lie. Even so, he knows it won't end well. 'A generous old lady who's passed away, how convenient for this orphan!' will be what he thinks of the truth. Zahir strokes his thumb over the bead carvings one last time before offering them to Singh Ji. Nothing good can happen if he keeps clutching them.

“Mrs. Kaur gave them to me before she passed, sir, _ sir-!” _ The monk grips Zahir’s offered prayer beads and wrenches them closer. Zahir cries out as the wooden beads dig into the thin flesh of his hands.

Singh Ji inspects the beads.

"This is good handiwork," he says slowly. "Very elegant, especially for anyone to give away."

"Mrs. Kaur said I reminded her of her grandson sir-!"

Singh Ji yanks again, this time with the intent to take away. One fearful glance at his face reveals that he is enraged.

"This temple does not forgive liars and thieves!" Singh Ji thunders. "Even if you had scavenged this off the prayer hall, you have kept this from their rightful owner. This temple is no orphanage with shoddy rules and ethics, and you _ will abide _ by our moral tenets!" His final tug is so fierce it makes Zahir's arms pop in their sockets, but Singh Ji keeps yanking and-

_ Snap! _

Zahir can only watch his precious prayer beads waterfall onto the floor.

_ Cli-cli-cli-cli-click. _

When Hyunwoo sees the police handcuff Dad, it feels like the first time his dad punched him on the head and he fell to the floor, deaf to everything except the ringing in his ears. His feet are frozen to the pavement and he feels himself sway in place, dizzy and mute, feeling like his backpack will tip him over backwards and have him crack his head on the ground.

He’d been kind of excited to show Mom the algebra test he got back today. 85, that was pretty good, right? As long as he was quiet and didn’t move suddenly, didn’t act like Dad and make her epilepsy act up, Mom might even tell him ‘good job.’ And he bought a Turtle Egg ice cream to celebrate and because the day was so hot, even though it’s autumn. And then his dad is chased down, apprehended, and driven away in the back of a police car while he’s watching it all happen, just two blocks away.

_ Cli-cli-cli-cli-click. _

The sound of the handcuffs locking on Dad’s wrists seem to echo in his head. Shit. Why’s he getting arrested? Did he finally punch someone else and get assault charges? But they need money. Mom doesn’t work. Dad’s factory job is all they have. Hyunwoo’s part-time errand-jobs don’t count.

Shit. _ Mom. _ The police had fished some things out of Dad’s hands and pockets. Knives? Pipes? Is she-

Hyunwoo starts sprinting. The ice cream in his mouth is now nauseatingly sweet. Sugar and fear clogs his throat and almost chokes him. _ Mom. Mom. Mom, mom please be okay. _

He reaches his apartment complex, and there’s no police cars in front of the block so it’s probably- it’s not a murder scene right? Not in the apartment, and Dad almost never let Mom outside, so it’s probably- Mom’s not-- right? Mom’s not-

He runs up the stairs, feet and heart pumping furiously, and by the time he’s at the door stabbing in the password combination, all that goes through his mind is _ mommommompleasebeokaymomplease. _

He wrenches the door open.

“Mom!” He shouts. _“Mom!” _His footsteps thunder into the apartment and he skids into a wall - _bang!_ \- from his frantic speed. There’s a muted sound from her bedroom. “Mom!” He runs into the bedroom, sees her on the floor with no blood and no Dad-characteristic destruction around her and he thinks,_ she’s alive,_ _thank god, she’s alive._

He stops short when his mom looks up at him with distant eyes, and she’s hyperventilating. Fuck.

He fucked up again.

“I- I- I-” Mom gulps and takes a shuddering deep breath. “I need- you to go. Out, for-” she chokes on a dry sob, “-get out- a bit- you-” Her arm spasms and she looks like she might have an episode right then for a second.

Hyunwoo starts to step backwards, eyes drinking in the sight of Mom alive, heart heavy and knowing what she will say. His weak knees almost makes it to the doorway before his mom sucks in a deep keening breath. He pauses, ready to lunge forwards to catch her if her epilepsy acts again.

“-You sounded like your father,” she manages to gasp out, before she’s struggling for breath again. Hyunwoo staggers. The ringing sensation comes back again in full swing. It’s not the first time he’s heard it, but- _ everytime _. He flails his hand out against a bookshelf to fight against the vertigo, but the motion only makes her flinch. He wants to die.

He finally reaches the hallway and his shaking fingers tug the doorknob along, turning it so it closes quietly, and -

_ Click. _

The battered front screen door shuts in William’s face as Rosalio storms out of the house, too old and weak to give Rosalio that satisfying _ slam! _ he wants to go out with.

“Rosalio-!” William starts to go after him, but Dad places his hand on his shoulder. _ Stay. _

“He’ll cool off and come back,” he says, but William still worries. Rosalio keeps storming out and threatening to run away. Who wouldn’t in his situation, honestly? One day, he might make good on his promise and they’d never know until it’s too late.

They’d all been fighting again, about baseball equipment. Rosalio is always receiving William’s hand-me-downs: baseball bat, pitcher gloves, cleats, even uniforms. They have the same cleat sizes at least, thank god, but the secondhand uniforms hurt his pride. Rosalio has more meat on his bones than William does - not a lot, but enough to show, and William already heard some of his classmates and rival teams making fun of him for it.

“I don’t need new sliding shorts or cleats,” he says. “Rosalio needs his own uniform more. My stuff is fine for at least a couple months.” Futile, he knows. Dad saw the angry welts on William’s feet, and everybody saw the burn on his thighs last game when he slid his way to home run and victory. And besides, Dad’s latest business venture failed again, so he’s probably not going to budge out of pride. All three of them know this.

But still, he has to try. He’s the older brother. Besides, all William ever gets is the nicer, newer things, and all Rosalio gets is thrifted stuff and William’s stuff when he _ really _ needs it, or _ really _ asks for it over months, and it’s either on sale or cheap in the first place. The difference between their things really shows. William’s part of the room looks _ nice, _ almost-almost comparable to those magazine photos, and Rosalio’s part is full of things fraying or battered or stained or cracked or used-to-be-William’s. It always looks like Rosalio is messy and that he couldn’t care less but he’s _ not _ and he _ cares. _

And it always looks and feels like Dad cares about William more, and William hates it so much. Dad loves the both of them equally. All three of them know that, right? (Or do they?) Just please let William take the bad stuff _ , _ so that Rosalio can get something that’s one hundred-percent his _ own, _ for once.

“I really don’t need new equipment.”

His dad heads to the fridge and gets the orange juice. He motions a cup towards William - _ want some? _ William shakes his head, so Dad pours half a glass of the stuff and fills up the other half with water.

“I don’t need new equi-”

“Son,” Dad starts, and he hesitates and sips the drink. William hates him a little for that, for trying to stall for an excuse so desperately. Look, his thigh burns are _ nothing, _ he just has to not slide for the next couple games till they have enough money for his stuff. _ After _ Rosalio’s. William doesn’t even slide that often, so it’s not even a big deal to not do.

Rosalio _ says _ it’s alright, after Dad said that he could afford either cleats and sliding shorts or a uniform, but not both. William can see it’s not, and that the whispers and snide commentary _ does _ get to his little brother. There’s no way Dad doesn’t see it too. All three of them know this, too.

“Son,” Dad starts again, and he opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and both of them square themselves against the coming moment, against each other. Dad is just a little bit more defeated, and slowly about to set down the glass to start to explain why he can’t just _ take care of Rosalio first _, all over again.

_ Click. _

With a press of the remote button, the screens on the wall switch cameras, showing the different areas of a desolate, largely abandoned island. In some screens, some animals stir about restlessly. In others, there’s human figures combing through their environments. The man holding the remote sighs. He turns to his co-worker. “How’s subject 02’s progress looking so far?”

“Tedious,” she answers. “She’s positively robotic.” She jerks her head towards the top monitor, which shows a woman systemically rummaging through the ruins of a temple, one hand on her rapier. “How’s your subject’s?”

The man shifts in his chair. The faint blue glow of the screens catch on his name tag for a moment. _ Assistant Researcher Dr. T. _“Same enough pattern. Hyunwoo’s trying to make friends with the dogs again.”

“Again,” his coworker scoffs, turning to him. “Will he ever learn?” In the light, her name tag reads _ Assistant Researcher Dr.K. _

“Hey,” he protests. “He didn’t name them Frog and Bitey this time.” His eyes track the boy on the screen and his every movement. This round, Hyunwoo’s looking quite unwell. His eyes have that faraway look that Dr. T has seen enough times to recognize. He might go Restricted this time.

…‘Go Restricted,’ is that what he’s calling it now? This is fucked. The boy’s only seventeen. and here he is, fighting for survival so that they can dissect and resurrect his body again and again to study it, so mankind has a chance of survival against the new super-disease. What an honor. What a damned shame. And here _ he _ is, Dr. T, sitting in this room, twiddling his thumbs and watching the same people die every couple weeks.

The boy _ walks to his death _every couple weeks, and all good ol’ Dr. T does is just jot down notes on how and why he committed suicide and decide if wiping the boy’s memories would lead to more effective test results for the next time they all send him towards the slaughter again.

“Focus,” Dr. K says, and she crashes his train of thought. “None of us got this job for our moral integrity.”

That startles a laugh out of him, and if his laughter is a bit high-pitched, neither of them say anything about it. “...You’re right,” he says, and he sighs, and brings up the remote again.

_ Click. _

**Author's Note:**

> :D :D :D did it hurt :D if it did i've done my job :D  
jesus christ I've been writing and editing the final draft of this for three hours i'm so tired and done. any typos and grammar errors that still remain, i'm gunna interpret as god's will
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and thank you for leaving kudos and comments!!


End file.
